June 2012

06/25/2012

On May 13, 1945, twenty-four American servicemen and WACs (Women's Auxiliary Corps members) boarded a transport plane for a sightseeing trip over “Shangri-La,” a beautiful and mysterious valley deep within the jungle-covered mountains of Dutch New Guinea. The sightseeing trip turned tragic when the plane crashed and only three survivors emerged. Lost in Shangri-La is the story of their survival and rescue.

Lost in Shangri﻿-La doesn't live up to its billing, mostly because the underlying story is rather uneventful. Amazon.com bills the book as recounting an "unforgettable battle for survival," an "unprecendented rescue mission," with the crash suviviors "facing certain death" in the jungle. What unfolds though is a relatively easy sojourn in the jungle and a rescue lacking any real suspense. The survivors were found within a day of the crash, the natives were just as nice as could be, the advance rescue parachuted in without incident and the final rescue effort came off without a hitch.

06/22/2012

With Mitt Romney and his religious beliefs in the news, the word “cult,” has returned to vogue in some quarters.

Walter Martin, author of The Kingdom of the Cults, is widely regarded as the father of Christian cult apologetics, or “countercultism,” a somewhat dubious branch of Protestant, particularly evangelical Protestant, theology. A sign of the veneration Martin still receives from countercultists is the publication of the "revised, updated, and expanded anniversary edition" of The Kingdom of the Cults. As with two earlier revisions, The Kingdom of the Cults has once again been revised and updated by devoted disciples.

Martin was best known for his performances as the syndicated "Bible Answer Man" on the radio. His style is preserved in recordings of his talks—a few of which are still sold by the Christian Research Institute (CRI) and many more by the Religious Information Network (RIN)—along with his literature that is still in print. Martin's recordings clearly indicate that he was aggressive, confident, pugnacious, and witty—a spellbinder. Martin, who obviously loved to ridicule and assail those he denigrated as "cultists," liked to pose as a scholar and expert. He loved being called "Doctor" long before he purchased a Ph.D. from a correspondence school in California. He often expounded on the meaning of Greek or Hebrew words in the Bible, giving the impression that he had mastered the ancient biblical languages.

Among the cults, or religions if you’re feeling charitable, that are the target of Martin’s purported scholarship are Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientist, Buddhism, Islam, and my own, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormon Church. Walter famously had little regard for any interpretation of the Bible or exercise of religious faith that differed from his own. Giventhat my own faith was a long-time target of Martin, I couldn’t help but focus on the chapter devoted to it in The Kingdom of the Cults. Martin once observed that that countercultists should not "pretend to understand the doctrines of a cult unless you have first looked them up and studied them fromprimary sources." By any objective standard, The Kingdom of the Cults falls far short of Martin’s own standard. In the chapter on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Martin’s writing is hardly original and little more than a recitation of the views of other disaffected Mormons and critics whose own works have long been suspect. Martin hardly attempts to examine the primary sources.

The principal problem with Martin’s work, whatever the context, is the dubious foundation upon which he begins. Martin, borrowing from Dr. Charles Braden, defines a cult as “any religious group which differs significantly in one or more aspects as to belief or practice from those religious groups which are regarded as the normative expressions of religion in our total culture.” Of course, it shouldn’t be lost on readers of Martin’s work that he alone seems to define what is normative and what is not. More problematic, however, is the fact that Martin apparently never paused to think that by this definition the very first followers of Jesus in ancient Palestine would have been regarded as members of a cult. To Braden’s definition, Martin adds his own additional qualification, including among cultists “a group of people gathered about a specific person or person’s misinterpretation of the Bible.” Here too, one wonders if Martin ever felt to consider that such a definition could have (and was in fact) applied to Martin Luther, the very root from which Martin’s branch of Christianity sprang. It was also apparently lost on Martin that the various sects of Christianity have been fighting over the correct interpretation of the Bible for hundreds of years before he ever put pen to paper. Thus, by his standard not only would Lutheranism be properly deemed a cult, but Anglicanism, Calvinism, Presbyterianism and other branches of Christianity too.

The Kingdom of the Cults is not serious scholarship, or even scholarship for that matter. Sadly, it has however, taken on the patina of scholarship because many of its devotees insist that it is so. No religion can ever be understood without going directly to the source and honestly seeking to understand what its own adherents believe and have to say. As a kind mentor once told me, in matters of religion one is best served by drinking directly from the fountainhead rather than downstream where the cattle have waded through.

06/10/2012

I heard Kevin Starr speak at a recent program on the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge sponsored by the Commonwealth Club of California. I was so impressed with his storytelling style that I decided to pick up his much recommended book on the bridge. I was not disappointed. Complete and concise. Very well written.